The Theory of Everything
by littlexkiller
Summary: A double-shot of vignettes where your favourite ships FitzSimmons and SkyeWard are in their sunset years - but not everyone gets a happy ending.
1. The Theory of Living

"Great Gran Simmons?" squeaked a bouncing seven-year-old with eyes that were as clear as a summer day. "Gran, will you tell us about ALS?"

The girl looked up keenly at the treasured Dr Jemma Simmons, who was radiant as ever at the ripe age of ninety-two. Though her hair had long ago thinned and turned to the finest silver, and her dear husband of six and a half decades formerly known as the startingly persistent Agent Leopold Fitz was succumbing day by day to late onset dementia, a fire burned behind her deep hazel eyes that was as clear and intelligent as the day she signed onto Coulson's team.

Her laugh rang through the air, burbling steadily like an aqueous solution on a Bunsen burner, but with more grit and huskiness to it than the sound of her youth. She found she preferred it.

"Fitz!" she called through the house from her chair on the porch, surrounded by the cultivated beauty of a classic English rose garden in their estate in Perthshire. "Fitz, darling, you won't believe what Aurum just asked me to – ah, there you are, you aging slug. Come here."

Simmons patted the armchair next to hers invitingly as her grey-haired husband hobbled over at a leisurely pace and sat down with a small groan.

"What's our little bairn rattling on about now?" he boomed affectionately.

"She wants me to tell her about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis," Simmons told him, her words tangled with inextricable pride.

"Does she now? Well, go on then."

A faintly shaking smile spread across her leathered face, and Aurum began braiding her rich brown hair at the foot of Simmons' chair.

"ALS is essentially a disease where the upper and lower motor neurons in the motor cortex of the brain, the spinal cord and the brain stem. But there's at least twenty-five types of genetic mutations associated with familial cases – meaning people could get it from Ma or Da – and there's no real cure yet, so ALS patients can only manage it by taking medications like Riluzole to delay oncoming dependence on a ventilator to survive. Again, such medications are not a cure, and can only serve to marginally prolong the life of the patient and help relieve their symptoms."

A somewhat frozen smile remained on young Aurum's face as she scrunched her nose in deep concentration, trying to understand the big words her great-grandmother was fond of using in casual dialogue.

"Okay, cool," she said finally, brow still furrowed in thought. "D'you think _I_ could cure amy-o-tro-phic-"

"Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis."

"Yeah. D'you think I could be the one who cures people of it?"

Until then, Aurum had insisted on growing up to be a princess, or an astronaut. Or a princess who also happened to be an astronaut. The dreams of children were a source of infinite curiosity to Simmons, who regularly reassured her great-granddaughter's primary school teacher that becoming an aristocratic space explorer was a perfectly respectable career goal.

"Absolutely," Simmons stated firmly. "You're about the smartest young girl I can think of. Next to your Nanna, of course. Poor thing never went to secondary school."

Aurum grinned at her, and the freckles that danced across her nose and cheeks seemed to migrate and shift, not unlike the sands of time.

"Thanks, Gran."

Simmons looked across at her husband with great content and saw he had fallen asleep, snoring heavily in his armchair. Stifling a laugh, she gently covered him with a blanket and took Aurum by the hand.

"It's time for tea," she reminded the young girl, who pouted up at her.

"But I want another dissertation!" Aurum cried defiantly.

"I think you mean you want another _explanation_ , love," Simmons gently corrected her.

"Yeah. I want to hear about _all_ the diseases. I'm going to be a great doctor like you."

"I do hope so, dear. I hope so."


	2. The Theory of Dying

_**A/N: Dedicated to AsguardGuardian. No Ward betrayal, because hell no. Nor am I digging into the non-canon, because again, hell no. Way too many feelings still. I am in a permanent state of it being 'too soon'.**_

 _ **There is also a subtle, not-so-subtle reference to my other fic, 'To Seek A Great Perhaps' in here.**_

* * *

Daisy was fixing her son's vintage MacBook Air for his college presentation in _History in Technology_ at MIT when she heard a peculiarly rhythmic knock at the door. She quickly realised it was Morse code. _Of course_ , she realised. Daisy wiped the keyboard dust off her hands and made her way to the cherry red door, excitement and dread swirling together in her chest as she swung it open. In stepped a frail, bone-thin Asian woman with shining skin and a grave expression.

"Oh my God, May, is that you?" she burst, immediately pulling out a chair for the woman.

"Last time I checked," May quipped, straight-faced, without missing a beat.

"What brings you here?"

The ex-agent sighed heavily and clasped her hands on the tabletop.

"I know you quit SHIELD after you got married and we haven't seen each other since, but I'm afraid it's not a courtesy visit."

Daisy clenched her fists under the table in anticipation as her former SO trailed off. She quickly realised the type of news she was about to receive, and it was beginning to sink in. Daisy hastily moved to shut the door to her son's bedroom. _He shouldn't hear this_ , she rationalised to herself.

"Give it to me straight. I want to hear this in your own words," she said boldly, although the strength of her tone was not enough to conceal the tremble in her line.

"According to the surveillance report, Grant Douglas Ward, aged forty-four, was killed in action last week while undercover in the outskirts of the Republic of South Ossetia in Russia. I... I need you to confirm. It's..."

"Protocol," Daisy croaked numbly, gripping the table to steady herself as the tears began to fall. "I know."

"I'm sorry for your loss," May told her with a distant form of tenderness.

Daisy barely heard her as everything began to fade into the background, just white noise to the pain that was spreading through her mind and body. Worse still, she had known of and dreaded this date since the day Ward finally told her how he felt in that tiny, cramped storage closet on the Bus. The day that SHIELD fell and was rebuilt from the ashes. Years of memories, years of missions narrowly-escaped and tears of both frustration and joy flooded through her mind dervish-like as she nodded solemnly at the low-resolution picture of her husband lying dead, sprawled across the dirt like a carefully-sniped eagle.

* * *

"How did it happen?" she blurted eventually, discretely wiping the tears from her chin.

"He was shot four times by a Hydra sleeper agent in the rebel forces at the border while defending his team. Twice to the head, twice to the heart. Simmons' team says he bled out in seconds. It was instant and mostly painless. Because of his actions, the team got out alive and still have the asset they were sent to protect."

"Thank you," Daisy replied almost inaudibly, ushering May towards the door with shaking hands. "That's all I need to know."

"Are you going to be okay?" May asked knowingly, brow furrowed in genuine concern for her former trainee.

"Of course." A sad little nostalgic smile spread across Daisy's face as tears continued to trickle slowly onto her cheekbones. "I learned from the best."

She shut the door with a click behind her, and fell against it almost immediately as quiet sobs began to rack her body. Daisy covered her mouth and nose with a trembling hand for fear of waking her son in the room across the hall as she cried there for several minutes. Ward had been her cornerstone, her other half, for the better part of fifty years. Even after she left SHIELD and became a casual lecturer in Computer Science at MIT, he stayed on as an intelligence officer, primarily gathering intel and only doing field work when absolutely necessary. As the Ward family grew and their children became adults, they started calling on him less and less. Operation Bravo Sierra Victor 33 was meant to be his last assignment before they enjoyed an early retirement together. The tickets to the south coast of France had been booked. And some Hydra bastard had taken the opportunity to cross him off before he could live a real life.

 _Of course_.

Because that seemed to be the way the world worked. Life was a cruel mistress, beating you and showering you with the finest of delights, and then beating you again. It was as if to say, 'Take what you have and run. Run far, far away while you are young, where the world cannot reach you.' And despite this knowledge, she had allowed herself to get caught up in the game of life, of the daily routine, of children and taxes and the ever-changing identity of her husband. Now, it was too late. Now, he was gone and she was still here, left to cling to the remaining years of her life in solitude before she too, slipped into the void.

* * *

Daisy buried her face in her hands as her tall, dark-haired son emerged from his room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"It's true what they say. The old really don't need sleep," he told her jovially as he reached for a glass of water.

"It's only three in the morning and I am still in my forties, thank you very much. Why aren't you in bed, Leo?" she chastised lightly.

"Couldn't sleep. Thought I heard someone."

"Your Aunty May visited briefly. She... she had news to deliver to me."

Leo slowly lowered his glass from his lips, clinking against the table as he processed the meaning behind her words. He turned to his mother gravely and sat down beside her on the sofa, heavy as a stone.

"Dad's dead, isn't he?" he asked in a trembling voice. "Isn't he?"

Daisy's expression collapsed and she nodded in response, falling into his arms as the tears began to fall again.

"He was killed at the South Ossetia border, defending his team."

Her son looked up at her with wet eyes but the strong resolve of a Ward family member.

"Then he was a hero. He is a hero," he said firmly.

"Our hero," Daisy added.

"Then... what do we do now? Once everything's... done?"

She thought for a moment in silence, wiping the tears from her face with a measure of determination she had always been known for.

"Now? We have to rebuild ourselves from the ashes. We gotta move on - you, me and your sister Jemma. As a... as a team."

"As a team," Leo echoed, bringing a hand up to stroke his mother's hair tenderly. "I like that."

And so he returned to college at the beginning of the following semester, Jemma resumed International Baccalaureate, and Daisy went back to lecturing at MIT. Because the Ward family was, and are, and always will be a team.


End file.
